The Perfect Company Man

You wouldn't really have described Biel Company as a company man. Not politically. Elevated to supremo of the mega environment-agriculture-land ministry of José Ramón Bauzá's government, he took office as an independent. Biel knew about farming more than politics. His company background was that of the agricultural enterprise, not the organisation of a political party. He was of the Mallorcan heartland, born in Sant Joan, where they talk of nothing other than farming because there's nothing else to concern them, and talk about it in an impenetrable Mallorquín brogue. Perish the thought you would ever speak Castellano in this rural backwater.

When Biel was appointed, the farming community voiced its approval and, oddly enough for a businessman, there were warm comments from the unions. He may have ceased being an agricultural man of the soil with his hands thrust into the Mallorcan earth, but he was salt of that earth. He appreciated farming from both sides, and he did so with his roots in a conservative community, one that found appealing the politics that was to emerge when regional government commenced. Biel was 20 when another Biel, Gabriel Cañellas, became president. The party was to become the Partido Popular, and Cañellas gave it its definition: its regional definition, its Mallorcan and Balearic definition.

Once in government, Company was given the opportunity to prove that he was a company man. He took it and became a card-carrying member of the PP. As minister he did a fairly good job. He had his scrapes, such as the one to do with marine oil prospecting, but for the most part he kept his head down, stayed out of trouble and got on with his job.  

It was perhaps that previous independence which should have been a warning to Bauzá. As Company, in his generally efficient manner, acquired a good reputation, his stock rose. But he wasn't ever the full company man: not Bauzá's anyway. One could argue that he acted with ingratitude when he turned on Bauzá, but then all the ingredients why he did could have been foreseen: they were in the soil of Sant Joan.

Company has said that he would never have introduced trilingual teaching - not in the way it was, anyway - and nor would he have promoted the Law of Symbols and so the removal of the Catalan "senyera" flag from public buildings. As part of a government which did both, then this might seem a bit rich, but increasingly it became clear over Bauzá's time as president that he was not collegiate. He did things his way. It was he, Bauzá, who was not the company man; rather an autocratic and domineering entrepreneur crafting a new venture, a risk enterprise colliding with a culture of regionalism and of Catalan tolerance. Woe betide the CEO who tries to alter a company's culture without having the adept skills and charisma to persuade others to change. Bauzá didn't. Instead he charged headlong into change for which there was way too little support, and eventually the rebellion occurred, with Company at the head of the legion of the company of dissenters.

In being the first of the former cabinet to come out and say what he did last week, Company was voicing what many have thought. Despite the austerity, despite the advance of Podemos, had it not been for the anti-regionalism and for the assault on Catalan, the PP might still have won the last election, or at least not been as demolished to the extent that it was in losing fifteen parliamentary seats. He says that the party got themselves into too many "puddles". That's a literal translation. Holes would be more appropriate. And they were ones that could have been avoided, but Bauzá chose not to, and in so doing he neglected the roots of Cañellas's conservative, tolerant regionalism in the soil of places like Sant Joan. Company, ironically, might yet become the perfect company man. He's likely to become the next full-time leader of the PP. 


Index for August 2015

Aligi Sassu and the horse sculpture - 12 August 2015
All-inclusives: what is the regulation? - 5 August 2015
Bad weather in August - 19 August 2015
Balearic Government: policies and finance - 13 August 2015
Beach no-go areas - 6 August 2015
British police in Magalluf - 17 August 2015
Cala Varques, Manacor - 24 August 2015
Calas de Mallorca and all-inclusives - 1 August 2015
Catalonian nation - 28 August 2015
Cilla Black - 7 August 2015
Demons and politics - 27 August 2015
Embala't fiesta, Sencelles - 9 August 2015
Fiestas - who are they for? - 11 August 2015
Fun and the meaning of holidays - 4 August 2015
Gabriel Company - 31 August 2015
Jazz and politicians - 14 August 2015
Mallorca overwhelmed by tourism - 15 August 2015
Moors and Christians - 2 August 2015
Nepotism and health service - 10 August 2015, 18 August 2015
Podemos and its Balearic females - 3 August 2015
Prehistory and culture - 30 August 2015
Ramon Llull - 20 August 2015
Saint Bartholomew lanterns in Alcúdia - 23 August 2015
Squares - 16 August 2015
Tourist eco-tax - 8 August 2015, 21 August 2015, 22 August 2015, 29 August 2015
Tourist satisfaction - 25 August 2015
Tribute acts - 26 August 2015